Clockwork Princess
Page 12

"And I am not a Shadowhunter," said Tessa.
There was a silence. Then: "Hmm," Magnus said, and turned away from the fire. "I understand, Tessa, that you are to be congratulated?"
"I ..."
"On your engagement to James Carstairs."
"Oh." She flushed, and her hand went to her throat, where she always wore Jem's mother's necklace, his gift to her. "Yes. Thank you."
Will felt rather than saw Woolsey's eyes on all three of them-Magnus, Tessa, and himself-sliding from one to the other, the mind behind the eyes examining, deducing, enjoying.
Will's shoulders tightened. "I would be happy to offer anything," he said. "This time. Another favor, or whatever you wanted, for the yin fen. If it's payment, I could arrange-that is, I could try-"
"I may have helped you before," Magnus said. "But this-" He sighed. "Think, the pair of you. If someone is buying up all the yin fen in the country, then it is someone who has a reason. And who has a reason to do that?"
"Mortmain," Tessa whispered before Will could say it. He could still remember his own voice:
"Mortmain's minions have been buying up the yin fen supply in the East End. I confirmed it. If you had run out and he was the only one with a supply ..."
"We would have been put in his power," said Jem. "Unless you were willing to let me die, of course, which would be the sensible course of action."
But with enough yin fen to last them twelve months, Will had thought there was no danger. Had thought that Mortmain would find some other way to harry and torment them, for surely he would see this plan could not work. Will had not expected a year's worth of the drug to be gone in eight weeks.
"You do not want to help us," Will said. "You do not want to position yourself as an enemy of Mortmain's."
"Well, can you blame him?" Woolsey rose in a whirl of yellow silk. "What could you possibly have to offer that would make the risk worth it to him?"
"I will give you anything," said Tessa in a low voice that Will felt in his bones. "Anything at all, if you can help us help Jem."
Magnus gripped a handful of his black hair. "God, the two of you. I can make inquiries. Track down some of the more unusual shipping routes. Old Molly-"
"I've been to her," Will said. "Something's frightened her so badly, she won't even crawl out of her grave."
Woolsey snorted. "And that doesn't tell you anything, little Shadowhunter? Is it really worth all this, just to stretch your friend's life out another few months, another year? He will die anyway. And the sooner he dies, the sooner you can have his fiancee, the one you're in love with." He cut his amused gaze toward Tessa. "Really you ought to be counting with great eagerness the days till he expires."
Will did not know what happened after that; everything went suddenly white, and Woolsey's monocle was flying across the room. Will's head hit something painfully, and the werewolf was under him, kicking and swearing, and they were rolling across the rug, and there was a sharp pain in his wrist, where Woolsey had clawed him. The pain cleared his head, and he was aware that Woolsey was pinning him to the ground, his eyes gone yellow and his teeth bared and as sharp as daggers, ready to bite.
"Stop it. Stop it!" Tessa, by the fire, had seized up a poker; Will choked and put his hand against Woolsey's face, pushing him away. Woolsey yelled, and suddenly the weight was off Will's chest; Magnus had lifted the werewolf and shoved him away. Then Magnus's hands were fisted in the back of Will's jacket, and Will found himself being dragged from the room, Woolsey staring after him, one hand to his face where Will's silver ring had burned his cheekbone.
"Let me go. Let me go!" Will struggled, but Magnus's grip was like iron. He marched Will down the corridor and into a half-lit library. Will pulled free just as Magnus let go of him, resulting in an inelegant stumble that fetched him up against the back of a red velvet sofa. "I cannot leave Tessa alone with Woolsey-"
"Her virtue is hardly in danger from him," Magnus said dryly. "Woolsey will behave himself, which is more than I can say for you."
Will turned around slowly, wiping blood from his face. "You're glaring at me," he said to Magnus. "You look like Church before he bites someone."
"Picking a fight with the head of the Praetor Lupus," Magnus said bitterly. "You know what his pack would do to you if they had an excuse. You want to die, don't you?"
"I don't," Will said, surprising even himself a little.
"I don't know why I ever helped you."
"You like broken things."
Magnus took two strides across the room and seized Will's face in his long fingers, forcing his chin up. "You are not Sydney Carton," he said. "What good will it do you to die for James Carstairs, when he is dying anyway?"
"Because if I save him, then it is worth it-"
"God!" Magnus's eyes narrowed. "What is worth it? What could possibly be worth it?"
"Everything I have lost!" Will shouted. "Tessa!"
Magnus dropped his hand from Will's face. He took several paces backward and breathed in and out slowly, as if mentally counting to ten. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "About what Woolsey said."
"If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa," said Will. "Because it will be as if I were waiting for him to die, or took some joy in his death, if it let me have her. And I will not be that person. I will not profit from his death. So he must live." He lowered his arm, his sleeve bloody. "It is the only way any of this can ever mean anything. Otherwise it is only-"
"Pointless, needless suffering and pain? I don't suppose it would help if I told you that is the way life is. The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away."
"I want more than that," said Will. "You made me want more than that. You showed me I was only ever cursed because I had chosen to believe myself so. You told me there was possibility, meaning. And now you would turn your back on what you created."
Magnus laughed shortly. "You are incorrigible."
"I've heard that." Will pulled himself away from the sofa, wincing. "You'll help me, then?"
"I'll help you." Magnus reached down his shirtfront and drew out something that dangled on a chain, something that glowed with a soft red light. A square red stone. "Take this."
He folded it into Will's hand.
Will looked at him in confusion. "This was Camille's."
"I gave it to her as a gift," said Magnus, a bitter quirk to the side of his mouth. "She returned all my gifts to me last month. You might as well take it. It warns when demons are close. It might work on those clockwork creations of Mortmain's."
"'True love cannot die,'" Will said, translating the inscription on the back in the light from the corridor. "I can't wear this, Magnus. It's too pretty for a man."
"So are you. Go home and clean yourself up. I will call upon you as soon as I have information." He looked at Will keenly. "In the meantime do your best to be worthy of my assistance."
"If you come near me, I shall bash in your head with this poker," Tessa said, brandishing the fireplace instrument between herself and Woolsey Scott as if it were a sword.
"I've no doubt you would too," he said, looking at her with a grudging sort of respect as he mopped the blood from his chin with a monogrammed handkerchief. Will had been bloody too, his own blood and Woolsey's; he was doubtless in another room with Magnus now, getting more blood smeared everywhere. Will was never overconcerned with neatness, and even less so when he was emotional. "I see you've begun to be like them, the Shadowhunters you seem to adore so much. Whatever possessed you to engage yourself to one of them? And a dying one at that."
Rage flared up in Tessa, and she considered smacking Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn't fancy her chances. "You don't know James Carstairs. Don't speak about him."
"Love him, do you?" Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. "But you love Will, too."
Tessa froze inside. She had known that Magnus knew of Will's affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate. "That's not true."
"Liar," said Woolsey. "Really, what is the difference if one of them dies? You always have a fine secondary option."
Tessa thought of Jem, of the shape of his face, his eyes shut in concentration as he played the violin, the curve of his mouth when he smiled, his fingers careful in hers-every line of him inexpressibly dear to her. "If you had two children," she said, "would you say that it was all right if one of them died, because then you'd still have another?"
"One can love two children. But your heart can be given in romantic love to only a single other," said Woolsey. "That is the nature of Eros, is it not? So novels would tell us, though I have no experience of it myself."
"I have come to understand something about novels," Tessa said.
"And what is that?"
"That they are not true."
Woolsey quirked an eyebrow. "You are a funny thing," he said. "I would say I could see what those boys see in you, but ..." He shrugged. His yellow dressing gown had a long, bloody tear in it now. "Women are not something I have ever understood."
"What about them do you find mysterious, sir?"
"The point of them, mainly."
"Well, you must have had a mother," said Tessa.
"Someone whelped me, yes," said Woolsey without much enthusiasm. "I remember her little."
"Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure."
"Is that what you are doing? Enduring? Surely an engaged woman should be happier." His light eyes raked her. "A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart."
"House," said Tessa.
He raised an eyebrow. "What was that?"
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct."
"And maybe you should stop pitying yourself," he said. "Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two."
"Says the man who has none."
"Oh!" Woolsey staggered back with his hand against his heart, mock swooning. "The dove has teeth. Very well, if you don't wish to discuss personal matters, then perhaps something more general? Your own nature? Magnus seems convinced you are a warlock, but I am not so sure. I think there may be some of the blood of faeries about you, for what is the magic of shape-changing if it is not a magic of illusion? And who are the masters of magic and illusion if not the Fair Folk?"
Tessa thought of the blue-haired faerie woman at Benedict's party who had claimed to know her mother, and her breath hitched in her throat. Before she could say another word to Woolsey, though, Magnus and Will came back in through the door-Will, as predicted, just as bloody as before, and scowling. He looked from Tessa to Woolsey and laughed a short laugh. "I suppose you were right, Magnus," he said. "Tessa is in no danger from him. One cannot say the same in reverse."
"Tessa, darling, put the poker down," Magnus said, holding out his hand. "Woolsey can be dreadful, but there are better ways of handling his moods."
With a last glare at Woolsey, Tessa handed the poker to Magnus. She went to retrieve her gloves, and Will his coat, and there was a blur of movement and voices, and she heard Woolsey laugh. She was barely paying attention; she was too focused on Will. She could tell already from the look on his face that whatever he and Magnus had said to each other in private, it had not solved the problem of Jem's drugs. He looked haunted, and a little deadly, the blood freckling his high cheekbones only making the blue of his eyes more startling.
Magnus led them from the drawing room and out to the front door, where the cool air hit Tessa like a wave. She tugged her gloves on and nodded a good-bye to Magnus, who shut the door, closing the two of them out in the night.
The Thames glittered past the trees, the roadway, and the Embankment, and the gas lamps on Battersea Bridge shone down into the water, a nocturne in blue and gold. The shadow of the carriage was visible beneath the trees by the gate. Above them the moon appeared and disappeared between moving banks of gray cloud.
Will was utterly still. "Tessa," he said.
His voice sounded peculiar, odd and choked. Tessa stepped quickly down to stand beside him, looking up into his face. Will's face was so often changeable as moonlight itself; she had never seen his expression so still.
"Did he say he would help?" she whispered. "Magnus?"
"He will try, but-the way he looked at me-he felt sorry for me, Tess. That means there's no hope, doesn't it? If even Magnus thinks the endeavor is doomed, there is nothing more I can do, is there?"
She laid her hand upon his arm. He did not move. It was so peculiar, being this close to him, the familiar feel and presence of him, when for months they had avoided each other, had barely spoken. He had not even wanted to meet her eyes. And now he was here, smelling of soap and rain and blood and Will.... "You have done so much," she whispered. "Magnus will try to help, and we will keep searching, and something may yet come to light. You cannot abandon hope."
"I know. I know it. And yet I feel such dread in my heart, as if it were the last hour of my life. I have felt hopelessness before, Tess, but never such fear. And yet I have known-I have always known ..."
That Jem would die. She did not say it. It was between them, unspoken.
"Who am I?" he whispered. "For years I pretended I was other than I was, and then I gloried that I might return to the truth of myself, only to find there is no truth to return to. I was an ordinary child, and then I was a not very good man, and now I do not know how to be either of those things any longer. I do not know what I am, and when Jem is gone, there will be no one to show me."
"I know just who you are. You're Will Herondale," was all she said, and then suddenly his arms were around her, his head on her shoulder. She froze at first out of pure astonishment, and then carefully she returned the embrace, holding him as he shuddered. He was not crying; this was something else, a sort of paroxysm, as if he were choking. She knew she should not touch him, yet she could not imagine Jem wanting her to push Will away at such a moment. She could not be Jem for him, she thought, could not be his compass that always pointed north, but if nothing else she could make his a slighter burden to carry.